old.kete.net.nz :Documentation

Topic: FAQ

Topic type:
Topic

Frequently Asked Questions - this is the place to ask and answer questions about Kete or the old.kete.net.nz site.

Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions topic for Kete and the old.kete.net.nz site.

Please edit this topic to add a new question or answer one that has been added.

For more complex questions, consider whether asking it in the form of a new related topic would better.

Questions:

What is Kete?

Kete can be thought of as a relational wiki. It is software that combines aspects of Digital Libraries/Repositories, Knowledge and Content Management Systems, and collaboration tools to make it easy to add and relate content on a Kete site.

It is also an open source web application written on top of the Ruby on Rails framework.
How is Kete different from a wiki?

We often refer to Kete as "wiki inspired". Wikis are very text based and multimedia integration is usually a manual process and cumbersome. For most wiki software anything but text is sort of bolted on. When we conceived of Kete, we wanted images, audio, video, and documents, as well as discussion to be right at the fore along with text. So all of these types of digital artifacts are easily bundled around a topic.

We also wanted this rich information to be easily reusable and shareable, whether it was the metadata itself, or the binary files. Thus our emphasis on open standards, such as having an OAI-PMH repository for all public metadata on a site and support for very specific RSS feeds. Again, multimedia is given importance, even within our RSS feeds, so it's easy to use Kete to host podcasts for example or using it with different discovery tools such a the Cooliris.com plugin which makes a great digital kiosk.

Kete was also viewed as a part of a larger information ecosystem, as such it has tools for easily pulling data from site administrator configured sources (other Kete, or search aggregation sources like Digital New Zealand or even Twitter, anything that uses OpenSearch standard). Here's an example of Kete site's search showing material from a library's catalog, some of the library's other digital resources, and the Digital New Zealand search aggregation service under "More Resources":

http://chinesecommunity.org.nz/en/site/search/topics/for/silver?search_terms=silver

Here's a search on old.kete.net.nz for information about Kete Horowhenua, with results from Digital New Zealand and Twitter:

http://old.kete.net.nz/en/site/search/topics/for/kete+horowhenua?search_terms=kete+horowhenua

Another example, this time showing results pulled in from another Kete site along with Digital New Zealand:

http://horowhenua.kete.net.nz/en/site/search/topics/for/council+minutes?search_terms=council+minutes

So we try to make it easy to pull in relevant material from other sources, but we also make it easy to push the local Kete site data out again. Here's a new feature in Koha that does a parallel search of Kete Horowhenua along side search results from its catalog:

http://opac.koha.catalystdemo.net.nz/cgi-bin/koha/opac-search.pl?q=maori+battalion

or here are Kete Horowhenua items showing along side Te Papa's collection results through the Digital New Zealand service:

http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/search.aspx?term=anzac

To summarize, Kete's differences from wiki as giving equal importance to multimedia items as text and that Kete was designed from the beginning to be apart of a larger ecosystem of information, rather than only a narrow silo of text.
Who uses Kete?

See the list of sites that run on Kete.
Where can I download Kete?

Check out the Downloads page.
How do I install Kete?

Read the Installation Guide to find out how.
Who offers services to support Kete?

See the list of available Vendors for support of Kete.
Where can I find out more to about how to use Kete?

Check out the Help basket, peruse the Training Handbook, or ask a question here.
Where can I find news about Kete?

The Kete blog is what you are after.
The mailinglist seems inactive, how should I track what is going with the Kete project?

In essence, you want to keep track of the content that is being added or edited to this site. The best way to do that is using RSS to automatically be notified when something changes on the site. To find out how to use RSS with this site, please read the topic "What is RSS and how do I use it with Kete?".
How do I share information with the Kete community other than the mailinglist?

It's easy! Register on old.kete.net.nz and then you can add a topic, image, document, etc. to share your information. Perhaps your information is a comment on something already on old.kete.net.nz? Just use the "join this discussion" link on any item on the site.
What software does this site run on?

Kete of course! Usually the site is based on the latest features available from the "master" branch of the version control repository.
How do I use RSS with Kete?

Here's the topic that answers that question